Moments Beyond the Clock

The theory of elasticity is that everything grows and becomes smaller based on need. Meaning time, being elastic, can expand and contract depending on everything that needs to be done. For example, in winter, days are shorter, and there's an understanding that less can be done during daylight hours. However, time being elastic would mean that the same amount of things could be done during these shorter daylight hours as during the daylight hours of summer. Likewise, less can be done during the longer daylight hours than the winter daylight hours based on this elasticity if the time contracts.

Similarly, a longer night or shorter night can end up being the same amount of time based on this elasticity. I'm not talking about actual hours and time, but personal perception. So, the idea that productivity is more in summer or less in winter is not necessarily true.

When it comes to distance travelled, this is not elastic. If it takes ten hours to get from A to B, it will take ten hours unless factors slow down or speed up the journey. The distance remains the same, and the estimated travel time remains the same without outside factors; therefore, it's not elastic. What can be accomplished during this journey, however, is elastic. You might only have time to sleep and use the bathroom a few times, or you could found three companies and hire 50 people. So perhaps I am tapping into how productivity is elastic rather than time itself.

An hour can feel like a lot of time or very little time. If you have an hour left to live, it feels like very little time. But if you have an hour to wait for a file to download, it can feel like a lot of time. Yet, you can achieve just about the same amount of activity during both periods. And perhaps, if you know you are about to die, you can achieve much more in that hour—but, of course, not complete a ten-hour journey.

You can make $1 in an hour, or you can make $1 billion in an hour. Surely, a $1 billion hour has a lot of value, while a $1 hour has little value. The more an hour gives you, the more valuable it is. That's perhaps why eight hours of school can feel torturous while eight hours of beach and watersports are great fun. So here, I'm touching on the quality of time spent.

But what about when you look at your watch, and the day is over, yet you've done very little? Or, on the other hand, when you look at the watch and are amazed at how much you've already done today? We like time. We see time as important. Watches are beautiful, and some are wonderfully expensive. But does time matter when you're productive, or is it just a tool to tell you when you can stop being productive?

Perhaps a life of doing doesn’t need time. You act and rest when you need to, achieving all the things you want, and the deadline is of less importance. We often ask what we would do if money didn’t matter, but what would we do if time didn’t matter?